For 20 years Michael Corcoran has been working in RTÉ, covering and commentating on the Irish provinces’ exploits in Europe, writes Kieran Shannon.

Round four of Heineken Champions Cup action, coming as it does before the Christmas break, is crucial in so many ways, writes Donal Lenihan.

By learning from the best, the apprentice has become one of the best. Anyone who fears Leinster and Ireland talent Joey Carbery may get impatient waiting for Johnny Sexton to retire doesn’t appreciate the upside of operating in his shadow.

And so the Munster Miracles keep on coming, as if put together on some sort of supernatural assembly line cranked into use only in times of deepest trouble.

There was a time when teams boasting outstanding forward packs brought the All-Ireland League title to Limerick almost as a matter of course.

There are tributes and then there is the Donncha O’Callaghan variety, as hundreds of mourners learned yesterday at the funeral Mass for the late Munster Rugby media manager Pat Geraghty, 62, in Celbridge, Co Kildare.

When you ply your trade in the front-row of the Munster scrum, following legendary figures like Tom Clifford, Phil O’Callaghan, Peter Clohessy, and John Hayes, there’s little confusion over your responsibility to the famous red shirt.

Former Munster and Ireland rugby star Frankie Sheahan has been declared bankrupt in the High Court, owing over €1m.

Few people are better positioned to survey the Munster rugby landscape than Marcus Horan. As IRUPA player development manager for the province, he gets to see and hear the challenges the modern player faces. He was coaching his beloved Shannon until a disappointing departure a few month ago. He’s seen how the club game is nearly dying and he has a keen appreciation of what his ‘big brother’ Anthony Foley did — and continues to do — for Munster.

Carl Hoeft, a key member of the Maori All Black management team preparing for Friday’s sold-out clash with Munster at Thomond Park, is under no illusions about the challenge awaiting his side.

Nine years ago, Paul O’Connell assured the BBC that international careers could no longer last as long as his would do.

If ever there was a man primed for a tough day at the rugby coalface, it is Peter O’Mahony; relaxed, fresh and ready for what the Ireland flanker expects will be typically abrasive collision with the Italy pack on Sunday.

Paul O’Connell will have too much on his mind today to ponder his place in the Irish rugby pantheon as he makes his home Test farewell at Aviva Stadium. But that will suit the national team captain nicely.

Anthony Foley believes Paul O’Connell’s selfless nature will be the key factor in the Ireland captain’s decision on his rugby-playing future.

Donncha O’Callaghan would love it if Peter Stringer rejoined Munster.

Ronan O’Gara found himself stranded in Birmingham airport after Racing Metro’s victory in the Champions Cup yesterday, when he left his passport in the team hotel.

When it comes to dishing out plaudits, prop forwards are rarely if ever at the top of the pecking order.

The Champions Cup is well and truly up and running.

The closure of the well-known sports pub co-owned by former rugby international Peter Clohessy coincided with a receiver being appointed to assets owned by the business, new documents show.

The decline in Limerick city centre trading claimed another casualty yesterday with the closure of a well-known sports pub, Clohessy’s at Howley’s Quay.

Fifa’s decision to ban Luis Suarez from international competition for nine matches and from all football-related activities for four months is unusual in its reach, but that alone does not guarantee an appeal will be successful.

He may be the only one of Ireland’s legendary three O’s who won’t play in Twickenham tomorrow, but last night Ronan O’Gara was rugby’s undisputed lord of London.

It’s not today or yesterday Joe Brolly came to the attention of your eagle-eyed columnist. Or eagle ears, maybe.

The battle for control of the European game took a worrying twist last week. Entering the City Hall for Ronan O’Gara’s testimonial on Thursday night, I was made aware of the statement issued on behalf of independent mediators, Graeme Mew and Stephen Drymer, after two days of deliberations in Dublin.

He spent a career standing behind the big guys, but last night the heavyweights lined out in Cork to give Ronan O’Gara a tribute fitting for Ireland’s highest points scorer.

Rugby fans queued outside Peter Clohessy’s sports pub in Limerick from 8.30am yesterday, thirsty for mouth-watering rugby memorabilia up for grabs in a special auction.

In the final of his season previews, our rugby correspondent Daniel Pitcher takes a look inside the Munster camp.

The best match of his life also probably generated more nerves than any games he played for Muster, Ireland, or the Lions as rugby legend Paul O’Connell married his long-term girlfriend, Emily O’Leary in France at the weekend.

Former Irish rugby player Peter Clohessy said yesterday that his pub business in Limerick is being “crucified” at the moment by works associated with a €5m plan to open up Limerick to the River Shannon.

It was not just the Wallabies downed in Australia at the weekend by men who had travelled halfway across the globe.

Peter Clohessy’s going. So is Brent Pope. Mick Galwey has his tickets, and Alan Quinlan is on board. Anytime is a good time to travel to Australia, but for rugby fans, the 2013 Lions Tour is something else entirely. As holidays go, this is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.

Marcus Horan joined the growing list of ‘golden generation’ Ireland players to call time on their career.

As Munster prepare to meet Harlequins this weekend, Simon Lewis recalls, through the eyes of visiting players Daren O’Leary and Tulsen Tollett, the first European meeting between the clubs, back in 1997/98.

They may have been key cogs in the pack during his first spell at Munster, but Alan Quinlan, Mick Galwey and Peter Clohessy are all adamant that Declan Kidney should walk away from his role as Ireland head coach at the end of the Six Nations.

Mick Galwey, his old sparring partner with Shannon, Munster and Ireland, last night launched John Hayes’s autobiography “The Bull” in the Sin Bin, the Limerick bar owned by another former team mate and rugby legend, Peter Clohessy, who couldn’t be present because of the death earlier in the day of his father, Noel.

The company that operates the well-known Limerick entertainment venue co-owned by former Irish rugby star Peter Clohessy slipped further into the red last year, new figures show.

If evidence was needed to underline the value of youth, you only had to watch the scenes in Cardiff on Saturday when a gaggle of baby-faced assassins from Wales paraded the Six Nations trophy around the Millennium Stadium with the same innocent smiles as kids in a bouncy castle.

JOHN HAYES spent much of his rugby career avoiding the limelight.